Thursday 25 August 2011

Exhibition

It's a relief to get to the finish of a piece of work and it is at last out of the house and in a gallery where I can no longer feel the need to tinker with it.
 "Blue Guitar" has gone into Bilston Art and Craft Gallery in the exhibition "On Yer Mettle". The hanging was yesterday and it opens on Saturday 26th August.

The theme is based around metal, although the phrase means be "ready to take action". All around this area there are currently exhibitions celebrating the birth of Heavy Metal Music which happened in this area with bands like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath - all Black Country boys, many of whom had worked in metal factories and foundries locally.
Some of the exhibitions celebrate the music, whilst others are about the industry of this area mostly up until the 1980s.
My guitar has some metal in it... you can see the washers and metal fabric above and there are Indian Shisha mirrors for the volume, treble and bass controllers. Mostly it is made from recycled jeans - denim was the prominent fabric of the fashion associated with the music of course.
The quilt upon which it is appliquéd is made from recycled fabrics again - lace, silk and cottons, some of which is dyed with rust.

Oh yes - to get an idea of the size of it here is 9 year old Isabel "playing" it before the appliqué began!
Here she is with her brother, overseen by Granny, at the hanging where they were emulsioning a peg board for an interactive family sewing installation for the gallery!
The exhibition runs 27th August - 24th September 2011 - heres a link
Other news is that Linda and Laura Kemshall's online creative sketchbook course has now opened and I am looking forward to some peace when they go back to school, in between work, to get down to that.
Here are some wonderful seed heads (it's an addiction) from the Love In A Mist flowers I grew in the garden. Love those shapes...ripe for drawing!

Oh yes - ALSO I am pleased that my magic feather has flown across the ocean to Jude Hill to her project. Click this link to see.

10 comments:

  1. That looks a lovely exhibition space Clare. Good luck with the exhibition. Sadly I won't get across there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice to hear from you Julie - thank you for your good wishes - and wowza you are a quick commenter!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The guitar looks great hanging in that lovely space. Good luck with the skechbooks course. The nigella seedheads have feature quite a bit in my C&G sketchbook. They are so lovely and for some reason are bigger than ever this year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. nice that so many people will get to see your guitar. and i do love your feather as well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Isabel does a mean "air guitar"! Your artwork is wonderful. I am just amazed at the incredible creativity it took to create this. I was hoping to take the Kemshall's course, but it will have to wait until next time. I admire their work so much and wish you much success in your coursework. The nigella seed heads are wonderful. I dislike how they have taken over the garden, yet I love their blooms and pods. Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Clare. Love the guitar. Hope it's well received at the exhibition. Here's a link for Portuguese stem stitch, although I learnt it from Yvette Stanton and Prue Scott's book, Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature, which has some other really nice stitches in it as well: http://www.needlenthread.com/2006/10/embroidery-stitch-instructions.html. I'm loving using this stitch, hope you do too. Kelly

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a great piece, and it looks fabulous in that exhibition space. Having married a Black Country boy, I am surprisingly knowledgeable about rock bands and guitars ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh that has to be a good feeling! Love in a mist is one of my favorites...

    ReplyDelete
  9. It looks fabulous finished and I really like the depth the little quilted circles give to the background.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What fun to have your guitar (which is very clever and creative) shown. Great feathers and fabulous harvest.
    : )

    ReplyDelete

your comments are always appreciated - I enjoy reading them. You don't need to have a blog to leave a comment, you can select the name/URL option and fill in just your name instead of a blog link.